Patients with type 2 diabetes, aged 45 years or older who are able to attend a meeting and without a Dutch language barrier.

- Exclusion criteria

Patients >= 85 years.

- mec approval received

no

- multicenter trial

no

- randomised

yes

- masking/blinding

None

- control

Active

- group

Parallel

- Type

2 or more arms, randomized

- Studytype

intervention

- planned startdate

1-okt-2005

- planned closingdate

28-feb-2006

- Target number of participants

2400

- Interventions

The intervention group of patients and general practitioners participates in an educational program on urinary tract and lower respiratory tract infections. The control group doesn’t receive any intervention, but is managed according to usual care. The intervention period is 5 months.

- Primary outcome

Self-reported behaviour with regard to the uptake of measures relevant to patients and healthcare providers on the basis of the developed educational program.

- Secondary outcome

The following outcomes are assessed both in persons with diabetes and in primary health care providers:
1. Awareness of the possibility of an abnormal course and a specific treatment of common infections in persons with diabetes;
2. Knowledge about infections and prevention of an abnormal course in persons with diabetes;
3. Attitude towards infections in persons with diabetes.

In this trial the effects of an educational program on prevention and treatment of common infections in diabetes type 2 patients and general practitioners (GPs) will be assessed. GPs are recruited in 4 regional Municipal Health Services (MHS) in the Netherlands. Patients are recruited by the GPs. Patient education is aimed at promoting health seeking behaviour and compliance with antibiotics. One of the main issues in the education of GPs is the use of a tool to predict individual risks in patients with diabetes.